I thought squad camera's were always on once lights or siren were activated. I guess MPD have special camera's?

From the 4th Precinct Advisory Council site.

Sunday – 0034 hours – 31st & 3rd St – 07-408609. Officers stop a vehicle with four occupants and smell a strong odor of marijuana. Upon removing the occupants they recover numerous baggies of powder cocaine and 10 tabs of ecstasy. Officers turned on the squad camera and got recording of the suspects offering up ownership of narcotics.

http://www.4pac.org/community/viewtopic.php?t=153

I didn't know cocaine and ecstasy smelled like marijuana.

Now Cobb... You aren't suggesting the 'good officers' may have fabricated the smell of Pot in the air?

I read that - but didn't make the linkage of 'smell of Mar...' and found 'not pot'


Mostly-

I like that. Funny.

OK, guys, I think you're going off the deep end a bit here. It's entirely possible that the officers smelled pot- if the suspects had been smoking it in the car, they and the car are gonna reek. I can't count the number of times in warmer weather I've been driving with my windows open and caught that distinctive smell from 2 or 3 cars away. So, they stop on suspicion of MJ, find no pot, but do find other illegal substances. Where's the issue here? It's certainly a teaching moment- don't drive around high if you're transporting other stuff...

As far as the cameras, that's simply a matter of how they're wired up. I'd suppose that each department has it's own specifications- apparently, MPD's are on a separate switch.

Here I disagree. How about this teaching moment, don't do drugs.

Either do them, or transport them, not both.

I agree entirely. I lump them both under my personal rule #1:

1) Don't be stupid.

2) Don't be an asshole.

Basically, the stuff most folks learned in kindergarten. These four brain surgeons (*ahem*, "underprivileged persons") obviously missed that day...

MPD dash cams activate as soon as the officer starts the flashing lights. However, the officer CAN switch the camera off remotely by hitting a button on his microphone pack, or by hitting a button inside the squad car.

It seems obvious to me that this needs to be changed: cameras should run whenever the lights are activated. Actually, with today's technology, and given the issues of police credibility, cameras and microphones should run the whole damn shift.

What's more, they should be simul-cast, here on the internet, live. But that would be too much like democracy...

Or at very least stored for 30 days so that if complaints arise they still have them.

Damn straight! And they should have to wear shock collars so their handlers can correct their behavior via remote control. Plus there should be a remote control safety switch on their guns, batons and handcuffs that can only be deactivated by management. No sense in letting them make their own decisions when higher authority would only be a phone call away.

...they are so often wrong. And a wrong decision gets an innocent civilian hurt.

Are you implying that accountability would hinder the cops in doing their jobs? I can't think of any reason for your ad absurdum statement.

Of course cops need to make independent judgments. Do you not agree that those decisions should be transparently open to review?

Wrong decisions are unavoidable.

What the cops controlling the cameras means, though, that wrong decisions, no matter how bad they might be, are unreviewable, unaccounted and unaccountable, and far closer to unpreventable.

That said, while there are some definite downsides to the notion of privacy in public space largely become a quaint memory of a bygone era, the decreasing size and price of cameras means that there may well be more than a squad camera recording a specific scene, and that may end up being a check on some kinds of bad behavior at some times.